sand question
 

when i first bought my sand it was white, but i have a really hard time keeping it that way. it keeps on growing a very thick carpet of brown and green alge. what type of things can i put in the tank, to keep the sand bed clean.

Pete, for starters, you can put RO water in if you aren't already. Give us more info on the tank, what's in there now and why you think you're having algae problems.

its a 55 with 80 pounds of live rock. i use filtered water from save on foods. 6 small damssels 10 hermit crabs 2 pepermint shrimp, i have no idea why my sand went that color my tank has been up and running for 6 months

Pete, do you have a skimmer? How frequent are water changes? Problem is the tank is a bit on the small side for a tang, maybe a small yellow would fit. Are your lights old? That can cause problems.

i went thur a phase like that it was annoying the tank look so ugly,
all i did was just left it alone and waited till now
i'd started in august and it's gone now
it just takes time i guess

brad yes i have a skimmer, but no tangs just small damsells.
what do turbo snals do would they help? or some thing called conches/

Pete, turbo snails won't do much on the sand. Fighting conches might help, or some other sand eating critter. I haven't ever used them, so others can maybe advise you on those.

Pete

Regarding your algae problem, I would first figure out why it's happening(old tubes or bulbs, dirty water, over feeding, ect...)

As for fighting conches, they work great at keeping the sand clean. I have four of them in my 27gl and I'm really happy with how well they house-clean. I would stick with "fighting" conches though, as others such as Queen or Strawberry conches can get too big in a small to medium sized tank. I also have two sand sifting Yellow Watchmen Gobbies that do a terrific job at keeping the sandbed clean :biggrin:

If you have trouble finding them on the Isl. then try Tim at Seacare(listed at the right of the page). Tim usually has a good selection of conches and sizes to choose from.

Goodluck
cheers, Rich

I would also take a look at the Water you are getting. Alot of the store bought filtered water is bad. Do to the fact that little maintainance is done on the water filter. Try checking the Phosphates of a bottle you just bring home. This will be a good indecation of other problems with the water. Also over feeding will create Nitrates that algae will feed on. Your test will read very low for nitrates but the algae is feeding on it so the results will always be low. In the past i have used a airline hose during water changes to such the algae up. It comes back but each week it gets less and less. It is also very time consuming but what can you do

J

On a side note, Rich, you do know that a adult fighting conch needs aproimatly 2 sq^ft of OPEN sand bed to survive with out aditional feeding right? I have one in my 92 gal and it keeps the sand bed nice. there wasn't enuf food for two in my tank.


Steve